Best New Band, Formed In Last 12 Months

Paint Fumes

Staff Pick

The members of Charlotte's best new band revel in their sub-humble beginnings as musicians-in-residence at the Q.C.'s aptly christened Sewercide Mansion. With sonic forebears including the bluesy swamp punk of the Gun Club and the snotty garage riffs of the Seeds, Paint Fumes mix in the brain-rewired-after-serious-head-trauma aesthetic of brilliant '60s Lower East Side idiot savants The Fugs. Not ragged-but-right so much as wrong-on-so-many-levels, this noisy trio kicks out a queasy, exhilarating angel dust rush. Somewhere, rock-writing garage prophet Lester Bangs is cracking a chemically induced grin.